


Fractal

by DasWarSchonKaputt



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, Heandcanons about the Miraculous, Kinda, Origin Story, Pre-Series, teenage superheroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 05:27:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5993152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DasWarSchonKaputt/pseuds/DasWarSchonKaputt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Tikki used to pick broken girls.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>An origin story, of sorts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fractal

Tikki used to pick broken girls. 

It sounds callous now, with the distance of time, but it was a conscious decision, made with full knowledge of what she was doing. She chose the girls who would make Ladybug their entire life, who had nothing else, who would give anything and everything for the cause. Her heroines were fractured and dangerous girls and she thought it was all she needed from them. 

Sometimes, she could convince herself that she could be all they needed, too. 

But this is the thing about broken girls: you can make them heroes, but heroes die and heroes fall, and all the luck in the world cannot fill cracks that have been etched into the soul. 

Eventually, there will be no quick fix. Eventually, the damage inflicted is irreparable, even in the face of a miracle brought to life. Eventually, that lost, broken girl will look at their opponent and see something that is bigger than just them. Bigger than the dirt-worn girl who thought she could save everyone. 

And that broken girl might just decide that it is worth their life. 

Tikki does not pick broken girls anymore. 

It doesn’t really feel like a kindness anymore, to consume a person like that. 

Tikki has been to France before, though never to Paris. It’s a strange city – she does not think she has ever seen a place so simultaneously whimsical and uptight – but it is also a beautiful city. Part of her thinks that it’s a shame, the sheer, raw destruction that is waiting for this place in the next few years. 

The rest of her, the part that has lived her life moving from one fractured heroine to the next, knows that something does not have to be untouched to remain beautiful. 

Paris is where Tikki finds Marinette. 

It is difficult to say precisely why it is Marinette that Tikki chooses. Maybe it is that Marinette is so very full of life and love, a girl with a warm family and everything to lose. She crams as much as possible into her life and embraces her emotions in full. Vibrant, Tikki thinks when she looks at Marinette, vibrant and whole. 

_This time,_ she says to herself, quiet in the privacy of her mind, _it will be different._

\-- 

Different, Tikki is quickly learning, does not necessarily mean better. 

Tikki is used to thrill-seekers and adrenaline junkies, girls who loved danger because it made them feel wholly alive. To them, miraculous good luck was merely something to be weaponised – “Lucky shot!” one Ladybug cried, three hundred years ago, each time she used her powers to hit the most impossible target with her bow and arrow. 

By comparison, Marinette’s chosen manifestation of her power seems… tame, almost. 

There’s no bow and arrow this time around. There’s no dagger, no spear, no boomerang – just a girl with a yo-yo in a skin-tight suit. 

A zany, multi-purpose weapon for an unplottable, imaginative girl, Tikki supposes. 

But the thing which baffles Tikki the most is that Marinette does not seem to… _like_ being Ladybug. She transforms, defeats whatever evil has arisen, detransforms, and returns to her life. It is her duty, and she completes it with calm focus, but it is nothing more. 

Marinette never once considers sharing her secret, either. It is almost as if she views Marinette and Ladybug as two separate people, which is—dangerous. 

Dangerous, because Ladybug is Marinette and Marinette is Ladybug. Dangerous, because it is not that clear cut, because there is no time for Ladybug to decompress and process, because eventually it will all come tumbling down and it will not be Ladybug who has to pick up the pieces, but instead— 

Marinette will be the one left standing in the rubble that Ladybug has caused. 

It will be so much worse, Tikki thinks miserably, than her broken girls. Marinette has everything all those girls ever wanted and, slowly but surely, Ladybug is stripping it all away. 

And then Chat Noir shows up, and Tikki honestly could _kiss_ Plagg. 

\-- 

Plagg used to pick ruthless men. 

It was a personal preference of sorts. He liked his Miraculous bearers to be dedicated and driven, unflinching and unhesitating in the face of what was necessary. Terrible people, doubtlessly, but brilliant, brilliant heroes. 

Adrien Agreste is nothing like them. Adrien is no man – barely a boy, if Plagg is honest with himself – and he is the furthest thing from ruthless. 

At first, Plagg thought he could be. It was all there, from Adrien’s missing-presumed-dead mother to his negligent, cold father. Experience told Plagg that Adrien would grow into just the kind of Chat Noir he liked best: clinical and merciless, a no-muss-no-fuss kind of hero. 

In retrospect, Plagg should have allowed for the unpredictability of humans in his calculations. 

Because Adrien sees Chat Noir not as a chance to strike back at the world that has wronged him, but as a way to _fix_ it. The happy endings he can never have in his normal life are what he strives for as Chat Noir. No sacrifice will ever be necessary to Adrien; no-one is unworthy of rescue. 

How naïve, Plagg wants to sneer. How idealistic. How _foolish._

Chat Noir is not meant to be— _scrappy._ The power to destroy with a single touch is not meant to be anything but lethal in the purest sense. Impossible, miraculous bad luck is not meant to be wielded by a teenager trying to escape themselves. 

But it is and he is and Plagg knows how to live with his choices. It is barely even a blemish, he tells himself, on a legacy of thousands of years. 

Then he meets Tikki’s latest partner. 

Well, he supposes it would be a fallacy to say that he met the new Ladybug. That’s all Chat Noir with Adrien in the driver’s seat – Plagg denies any and all involvement with Chat Noir’s frankly embarrassing scrapes – but he _sees_ her. The girl beneath the mask. 

Ladybug is just as different to her predecessors as Adrien is to his. There is none of the free-running joy that Plagg has become accustomed to, none of the forward facing delight at the prospect of false salvation, just blank-faced calm and almost alien coldness. She looks at Chat Noir with shrewd, assessing eyes, and mutters something to herself before she proposes a split patrol system. 

Adrien grins at her. 

Plagg thinks, _Oh God._ There is only so much second-hand embarrassment he can take. 

She stares at him. “What?” 

“Your eyes are _really_ blue.” 

This is awful. Stop it, Adrien. 

Plagg momentarily considers forcefully ending the transformation there and then, just so that he doesn’t have to partake in this teenage awkwardness. 

Ladybug continues to stare at Adrien. “Okay,” she says, like she doesn’t really get it. If only Plagg had that luxury. “But if we divide up—” 

“Never mind that,” Adrien says, grin not diminishing one increment. He reaches forward and grabs her hand. “There’s something that you’ve got to see like this.” 

He doesn’t drag her. He just looks at her with wide, pleading eyes, until she nods. 

He leads her over Paris’s rooftops, running and leaping and twisting mid-air, and then up the solid metal framework of the Eiffel Tower. 

“I’ve been up the Eiffel Tower,” Ladybug protests as Adrien settles them on the structure. “I live in Paris.” 

“But not like this,” Adrien replies simply. “Not— _here_.” He shakes his head. “I’m just—I’m glad, you know? I love doing this, _being_ this, but it’s kind of lonely, don’t you think?” 

Ladybug is silent. 

“And I mean, look at it all,” he goes on. “Paris is beautiful and I get to see it in a way that no-one else does, that no-one else can understand, except you. A split patrol system sounds good, but I’d really rather have someone to watch my back.” He pauses, frowning. “And now, I want to add in some sort of pun about mutual back-scratching and claws, but I can’t get the wording right. I’ll let you know if I figure it out.” 

Ladybug’s face, which has been set into a gently contemplative expression, twists into a grimace. “Please don’t.” 

“Aw, are my puns too paw-ful for you?” 

“Oh, God.” 

“Not feline it?” 

“Please, stop.” 

“I’m sure the time will come when you think my puns are claw-some. I’m purr-sitive.” 

“I swear to all that is holy, Chat, I will push you off this tower.” 

_Please do,_ Plagg thinks, but his heart isn’t in it. 

Adrien just laughs. 

Maybe this is why Plagg chose him. Maybe it was not about bitterness and coldness. Maybe it was about _this._

Adrien Agreste is magnetic. He pulls you into his orbit without realising and he holds you there. It is not a symptom of something amazing; it is the working of a boy who is so desperate for affection that he hands it out freely in the hopes it will eventually be sincerely returned. 

Weaponised insecurity – Plagg almost wants to laugh. 

He doesn’t, though, because he has fallen for it without realising. He is caught, suddenly faced with a hero who cares about him beyond what his power can offer. 

So he stays. 

He thinks that this time, Ladybug might just stay, too. 

END 

**Author's Note:**

> So it's canon that the powers of the Miraculous thingys show in different ways, depending on the person, right? So I have this theory that most people end up with weapons or whatever, and Tikki and Plagg are completely baffled by these two French teens who chose a multi-purpose yo-yo and an extending baton to fight crime with. And like, the reason why they do so much (phones, trackers, shields, whatever) is because Marinette and Adrien's attitude to it is essentially, "Well, why not?"
> 
> The last line is meant to imply that Chat Noir usually outlives Ladybug, because where Chat Noir is prepared to sacrifice everyone but himself and Ladybug, Ladybug is prepared only to sacrifice herself.


End file.
